An Introduction to God: The Names of God #7 — Jehovah Mekaddesh, the Lord Who Sanctifies

An Introduction to God #7 introduces Jehovah Mekaddesh, the Lord who sanctifies: the God who sets His people apart for His purpose and then empowers them to fulfill it. In this message, Dr. William P. Hohman teaches that sanctification works from the inside out, and that God both sets us apart and asks us to set ourselves apart to Him. He traces the theme through Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and a proud king named Nebuchadnezzar. It follows An Introduction to God: The Names of God #6 — Jehovah Jireh, the Lord Who Sees and Provides.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, every key Scripture he uses (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on December 19, 2023. Dr. Hohman explains why he loves teaching in series: the Bible says we learn line upon line, here a little and there a little (Isaiah 28:10–11). He calls this series An Introduction to God because, after Adam fell, God had to introduce Himself to mankind name by name throughout the Old Testament.

All that was revealed in those names was manifested in Jesus, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9). Each name, he says, is a phenomenal story and a picture of how we relate to God. This week the name is Jehovah Mekaddesh.

Faith Grows in an Incubator of Intimacy

Dr. Hohman’s starting point is that faith is grown in an incubator of intimacy. The more intimate we become with God, the greater our faith. He compares it to marriage. Intimacy there means being truthful, open and honest about who you are, your likes and dislikes. When people hold things back, they lose intimacy, and some couples live together without really being married, because marriage means becoming one.

God wants us to become one with Him. Jesus prayed for exactly that in John 17:20–23, asking that we would be one as He and the Father are one. God already knows everything about us, but He wants us to know Him too. That is why He began revealing Himself name by name.

This matters, he says, because we must live in faith and not fear. In Matthew 24:12–14, Jesus warned that because lawlessness would abound, the love of many would grow cold. Dr. Hohman sees that in people arguing and fighting, offended and blaming everyone else. But offense, he says, is in your own heart, and the only remedy is the love of God, which grows as we get more intimate with Him.

He quotes Psalm 119:165: great peace have those who love God’s law, and nothing causes them to stumble. By contrast, those who want nothing to do with God are given over to a debased mind (Romans 1:28). For a Christian to say “I am the way I am, bless God, like it or lump it” is a real problem. Following Christ is not a list of rules but an empowerment, because faith works by love (Galatians 5:6).

An Introduction to God: Jehovah Mekaddesh, the Lord Who Sanctifies

Jehovah Mekaddesh means the Lord who sanctifies. To sanctify, Dr. Hohman explains, is to set apart and make different; it is the same idea as holy. He reads Leviticus 20:7–8: “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”

Notice the two sides. God sanctifies us, and we are told to consecrate ourselves. Set yourself apart to Me in relationship, he paraphrases, and I will set you apart in an incredible way to do wonderful things. He says the biggest question he hears as he travels and ministers is: what does God have for my life? Many Christians do not know their purpose, and he believes the reason is that they do not personally know Jehovah Mekaddesh. If Jehovah Mekaddesh sets you apart, He can tell you what it is for.

The New Testament says the same in Ephesians 4:1–3: walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. How can you walk worthy of a calling you cannot name? And how can you bear with others in love if every word offends you? He has the church declare that what others say and do has nothing to do with them.

He reminds the church who first heard the Leviticus command. God spoke it to a people just delivered from four hundred years of bondage in Egypt. They had given themselves wholly over to taskmasters. Now God said, I want you to work with Me; I took you out of bondage for this. But they had a part to play: setting themselves apart to the Lord and not to the world, its ways and its desires.

It Takes Work to Build Family

To picture sanctification without a willing heart, Dr. Hohman describes children told they are going to Grandma and Grandpa’s. They go because the family is going, but reluctantly. They grumble the whole time, ask when they can leave and make everyone miserable. Children do not understand the purpose, he says: it takes work to build family.

He shares from his own family. He raised his children to know them, so that they would enjoy being together, and it took work. At his wife’s family Christmas gathering, his four children usually come with their families even though they live farther away, because they know family takes work. Many of the cousins who live nearby do not come. His children serve the Lord and build community, while some of the others struggle to hold jobs and marriages. They are good people, he stresses; they simply lacked knowledge, and God’s people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

Sanctification works the same way. Saying “Jesus, I give You my life” is the beginning. Then there are laws and principles of the kingdom to learn and apply, and as you do, whatever you put your hand to prospers. The table below gathers the contrasts Dr. Hohman draws between what sanctification is and what it is not.

He links this to the previous week’s message on Jehovah Jireh. Consecration was a voluntary sacrifice. Abraham did not have to offer Isaac; he did it willingly, looking to what God had prepared, and God provided a ram (Genesis 22:9–14). Jesus did the same in Gethsemane, praying not My will but Yours (Luke 22:42). God never forces us, but being willing spares us a great deal.

Set Apart in Babylon: Daniel and His Friends

The main illustration of the message comes from the Book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, took Israel captive and chose young men, older teenagers, to train for three years for service in his court. They were offered the king’s delicacies, rich food meant to plump them up so that the king would look generous. Daniel spoke for the four and asked to eat vegetables instead. At the end, the king found them ten times better in wisdom and understanding than all the magicians and astrologers in his realm (Daniel 1:8–20).

Then Nebuchadnezzar had a troubling dream that took away his sleep (Daniel 2:1–2). Nebuchadnezzar demanded that his wise men tell him both the dream and its meaning, or die. Daniel, with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, prayed, and God revealed the secret. In Daniel 2:47–49 Nebuchadnezzar says, “Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets,” and promotes Daniel to rule the province, second in command like Joseph in Egypt.

Dr. Hohman points to one word: your. Nebuchadnezzar called Him “your God.” He acknowledged God’s greatness but never gave his own life over, because he wanted to be worshiped and to stay in control. That, he says, is the root of so much arguing and conflict. Christians should be different; we are to consecrate ourselves and know Him as Sanctifier.

Some groups, he notes, define holiness by outward rules about hair, makeup and dress, yet the people are bitter and miserable inside. God does not work from the outside in. He sets our spirit apart first and then fills our lives with His Word, which grows and changes us. That is Romans 12:1–2: present your whole self as a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The Fourth Man in the Fire

Still unchanged, Nebuchadnezzar built a golden statue and ordered everyone to bow when the music played or be thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:4–6). Dr. Hohman notes how differently God works: God forces no one. When we simply desire to be more like Him, He shows us great and mighty things we do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused, were reported, and were given one more chance (Daniel 3:15). Their answer in Daniel 3:16–18 is the heart of sanctification: our God is able to deliver us, and He will, “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods.” Jehovah Mekaddesh does not set us apart only to set us up to lose. When we give ourselves to Him, He strengthens us and gives us abilities and understanding we never had.

God had a purpose beyond four young men, Dr. Hohman says. He was reaching the ruler who had taken His people captive, and He placed them where they spoke with that king every day. Believers are called to be influencers, not spectators, in companies, schools, governments, medical foundations and institutions. Though darkness covers the earth, the Lord’s glory will be seen on His people (Isaiah 60:1–2).

The furnace was heated seven times hotter, and the soldiers who threw the three men in were killed by the flames (Daniel 3:19–23). Then Nebuchadnezzar saw four men loose, walking in the fire, unhurt, and “the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:24–25). They came out with not a hair singed and no smell of smoke (Daniel 3:26–27).

Yet in Daniel 3:28–30 Nebuchadnezzar still says “the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.” He makes a decree and promotes the three men again, but he keeps himself at the center. Nebuchadnezzar recognized their God, Dr. Hohman says, and still refused to set himself apart to Jehovah Mekaddesh.

Pride, Humility and the King Who Finally Bowed

In Daniel 4 Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree, and Daniel interprets: he will be driven from men to live with the beasts and eat grass like oxen until he knows that the Most High rules (Daniel 4:24–27). Daniel urges him to break off his sins by being righteous. He did not, and for seven years he lived in the wilderness, his hair like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.

Selfishness, Dr. Hohman says, began in the Garden and ruled until Jesus came as a baby in a feeding trough and brought humility. Jesus washed feet, rode a donkey rather than a warhorse and became obedient to the point of death on a cross, and God highly exalted Him (Philippians 2:8–9). In Daniel 4:34–36, Nebuchadnezzar finally lifts his eyes to heaven, his understanding returns, and he blesses the Most High. Excellent majesty was added to him, which Dr. Hohman describes as a changed heart full of humility, love, joy and peace.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Wherever you are, God’s will is that you set yourself apart to Him, and then He can promote you, because He can count on you to glorify Him. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, the God of peace sanctifies us completely, spirit, soul and body: “He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” Sanctification is not working to be holy, he says; it is giving yourself to Him, who does the work. The proof is love, by which all will know we are His disciples (John 13:35).

He tells of being asked to go to Egypt when his plate was overflowing and his first answer was no. After a year he told the Lord he would go if God would change and strengthen him. In Egypt, he says, a young Muslim man named Abdul received Christ and took him into his parents’ home, a Coptic church opened its doors, many people were saved, and he was arrested and then walked out. Abdul’s parents received Christ, telling him he had brought light to their desert. Their oldest son, a radical Muslim, talked with him for two hours, then said, “You love my family and you love our people.”

That, he says, is the key: bring the light of God’s love wherever you are. He closes with 1 Peter 2:9, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and Ephesians 4:24: put on the new man, created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Pride, he warns, wastes relationships, jobs and doors of blessing; humility opens them.

Living Set Apart This Week

The message ends with an invitation to receive Jesus and to pray, “Jehovah Mekaddesh, come into my life, set me apart to be used mightily by God.” These steps come straight from the sermon:

• Grow intimacy first. Be open and honest with God about who you are; faith grows in that closeness.
• Ask what you are set apart for. Bring the question of your purpose to the Lord who sanctifies, not to the world’s counselors.
• Drop offense. Practice saying that what others say and do has nothing to do with you, and pray for them.
• Put your heart in it. Serve God willingly rather than reluctantly, like a child who understands why the family visit matters.
• Feed the inside. Fill your life with the Word and let it change your desires rather than starting with outward rules.
• Be an influencer. Bring the light of God’s love into your job, family and community.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Line upon line: an introduction to God
• 1:02 Faith grows in an incubator of intimacy
• 2:03 Living in faith, not fear: Matthew 24
• 4:07 Offense and a reprobate mind
• 6:20 Jehovah Mekaddesh: the Lord who sanctifies
• 7:37 Christians who do not know their purpose
• 8:41 Ephesians 4: walk worthy of the calling
• 9:58 Israel set apart after Egypt
• 12:19 It takes work to build family
• 16:11 Consecration: Abraham and Gethsemane
• 17:21 Nebuchadnezzar and the Hebrew youths
• 20:55 Daniel 2: the king’s troubling dream
• 24:14 The God of gods and revealer of secrets
• 26:34 Holiness from the inside out: Romans 12
• 29:57 The golden image
• 33:16 Jeremiah 33:3 and the fiery furnace decree
• 35:32 “But if not”: Daniel 3:16-18
• 38:03 Called to be influencers
• 40:58 The fourth man in the fire
• 45:54 Daniel 4: the tree dream
• 48:24 Humility and Nebuchadnezzar’s restoration
• 51:17 1 Thessalonians 4-5: God’s will, your sanctification
• 53:54 A mission trip to Egypt
• 57:30 1 Peter 2:9 and putting on the new nature
• 1:01:33 An invitation to be set apart

An Introduction to God Series

This message is part of a series at NTC Ministries on the names by which God revealed Himself. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: An Introduction to God: The Names of God, Part 1 — Elohim, the Creator Who Makes Covenant
• Previous: An Introduction to God: The Names of God #6 — Jehovah Jireh, the Lord Who Sees and Provides
• You are here: An Introduction to God: The Names of God #7 — Jehovah Mekaddesh, the Lord Who Sanctifies
• Next: An Introduction to God: The Names of God #8 — Jehovah Nissi, the Lord My Banner

Frequently Asked Questions

Does being set apart mean pulling away from people who do not know God?

Not in this message. Dr. Hohman’s example is the opposite: God placed Daniel and his friends inside Babylon’s court, where they spoke with the king every day. Being set apart means belonging to God and refusing the world’s ways, not hiding from the world. He calls believers to be influencers in workplaces, schools and institutions, carrying God’s love into the places where it is most needed.

Why didn’t Nebuchadnezzar change after seeing so many miracles?

Dr. Hohman points to pride. The king acknowledged that Daniel’s God was great, but he kept calling Him “your God” and kept himself at the center, wanting to be worshiped and in control. Seeing God’s power was not enough; he had to humble himself. Only after seven years did he lift his eyes to heaven, and that is when his reason and kingdom were restored.

Is sanctification something I do or something God does?

Both, according to Leviticus 20:7–8. God says to consecrate yourselves, and also says He is the Lord who sanctifies you. Dr. Hohman explains that our part is willingness: setting ourselves apart to Him daily and filling our lives with His Word. His part is the actual change. As 1 Thessalonians 5:24 puts it, He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Leviticus 20:7–8 — I am the Lord who sanctifies you
• Ephesians 4:1–3 — walk worthy of the calling
• Daniel 2:47–49 — the God of gods and revealer of secrets
• Daniel 3:16–18 — but if not
• Daniel 3:24–25 — the fourth man in the fire
• Daniel 4:34–36 — the king’s reason restored
• Romans 12:1–2 — a living sacrifice
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 — He who calls you is faithful
• 1 Peter 2:9 — a holy nation

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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